


Hello, Hap.

by OhMally



Category: The OA (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25274323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhMally/pseuds/OhMally
Summary: A story by Some Unfortunate Lady.
Kudos: 19





	Hello, Hap.

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome. This isn’t a fanfic in the usual sense. It’s a mystery, an explanation, a projection, an extrapolation, a collaboration, a gift, an indictment—it’s a bunch of useless screaming into a void. But I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Also, apologies. The ending of Part II means this encroaches into real people’s identities, which is a peculiarly uncomfortable thing. I will be pointedly minimizing the presence of people-based characters as much as I can (particularly as no one has given their consent), but obviously I can’t write this story without at least one key figure and mentions of a few others.
> 
> Please remember and understand that this is not a story about real people. Everyone in it is fictitious. Any resemblance to people in this dimension is simply because that’s where the show went, so it’s where I’m picking up.
> 
> Finally, this story isn’t about what I think will happen in Part III of the OA. It’s about something else. I actually think a few key events in here will play out very differently, but I’ve done them this way so that I can tell this story.

“Hello, Hap.”

For a long moment, no one said anything. The paramedic worked on the OA, Steve sat there holding her hand, and Hap stared like he was seeing a ghost because, to him, he _was_.

Steve Winchell was floating in the garden pool at the Melanu Clinic, a human raft of red flowers on a sea of possibility.

Steve Winchell was sitting in an ambulance in London, a lost sheep nudging the hand of his shepherdess.

It should have been “Patrick Gibson”—the actor equivalent of Steve in this universe, a name Hap knew from petal-fueled previews of this reality—but there wasn’t a shred of doubt in Hap’s mind. He was sitting in an ambulance with Steve Winchell, and Steve _knew_.

It felt like a dagger of ice had replaced the contents of Hap’s stomach.

“You need to leave,” said Hap, voice low and hollow—and most importantly, very, very English.

“Do you know him?” asked the paramedic.

“He knows me,” said Steve, gazing down at the OA. He seemed shocked to see her like this. Her state of fragility had broken some part of his hope, and all his expectations, but there was something else beneath the shock: a resolve and determination to do whatever was necessary. “They both do.”

Hap’s need for Steve to be gone from this situation was acute. He drew out the dagger of ice from his psyche like Excalibur from a stone of flesh and bone and turned the blade towards his opponent. He said to the paramedic, “Call the police.” He rose unsteadily in the moving ambulance. “Get away from her.”

The movement drew the paramedic’s attention from his patient. A flicker of alarm flashed in the man’s eyes. “Sit down.”

“She needs me,” said Steve, looking up.

Hap was surprised to find Steve’s expression was not reciprocally aggressive. There was an edge of complacency in Steve’s face, a suffering plea backed by the certainty that he was right where he was supposed to be.

The ambulance shuddered over a bump in the road. Hap’s hip bumped the gurney.

“Sit _down_ ,” repeated the paramedic.

Hap sat. He tried to keep focus on the threat posed by Steve, but his attention was inexorably drawn to the OA. His fingers grazed her hair. The once-beautiful, long locks were now truncated into a style of overt trendiness. It felt horribly inauthentic to the version of her he had chased into this world. Like the OA’s unbridled spirit had been caged in by life in the public eye.

The reprieve was temporary. Hap wasn’t sheathing his dagger so much as sharpening the blade.

When the ambulance turned a corner, Hap was ready. He moved with the van’s momentum, swinging around the gurney like a pendulum. He reached across the OA’s unmoving form and grabbed Steve’s leather jacket, pulling Steve towards the rear of the ambulance. The gurney rattled from their impact as they crashed down to the floor.

“Oi!” shouted the paramedic, throwing himself halfway onto the gurney to secure it. “The fuck—!”

Hap and Steve wrestled in earnest, a mess of shoulders, elbows, and knees competing for dominance. Hap was taller and heavier, but Steve was angry, young, and fitter. The advantage was not clear.

“He’s a stalker!” Hap managed. “Help me!”

Steve jabbed his elbow into Hap’s neck, sending Hap reeling and forcing a series of wet, choking coughs.

The paramedic shouted instructions to the driver over his radio before diving towards Steve’s legs.

Steve tried to pull away, shouting, “He’s lying! He's not who he says he is!”

This was the worst thing Steve could have said. While the paramedic might not have known about the marriage of Brit Marling and Jason Isaacs aside from the occasional shot of their faces in tabloids at grocery store checkouts, he certainly knew who Jason Isaacs was. It cemented Hap’s version of the narrative.

Hap went for the back door, powering through the lingering dizziness from Steve’s strike. He knew how to recover from blows at this point. It was not even the first time he had been hit by Steve. The young man in the previous universe had not gone willingly into the garden pool.

The door swung open with a gust of wind.

“OA!” Steve called, as if his angel would wake if there were enough need for it. “ _OA!_ ”

For a mad moment, Hap and the paramedic exchanged a glance.

Steve left the way he had entered. His body thudded and rolled out the back, receding with the painted white and yellow street markings.

The paramedic swung the door shut and brought the lock down so quickly it must have been a practiced move. “Are you mad!” he shouted at Hap.

Hap did not register the rebuke. He scrambled back to the OA’s side and took her hand. It was limp and heavy, completely unlike the delicate touch of a violinist.

The paramedic settled back to work, methodically rechecking every vital to ensure his patient’s stability. The routine was automatic enough for him to ask, “What the hell was that?”

“An actor,” gasped Hap, breathless as much from the blow to his neck as the shock that he had succeeded in removing his adversary, albeit temporarily. “He’s obsessed. Unstable.” He swallowed. “Thinks he’s—the character on the show.” The words were coming a little easier now. “We need police. Security.”

“You’ll have it,” promised the paramedic.

It was little consolation. Hap stared at the OA. There was something horribly lifeless about her face, an emptiness that went beyond rest. When the paramedic peeled open her eyes with his fingers and shone a penlight at her, her pupils did not react.

Hap’s lips moved ever so slightly.

He wanted to say _Prairie_ , but that would not have been correct.

Any name he said would have been wrong in that moment. OA, Prairie, Brit—no one was there.


End file.
